


black holes & starlight

by princesskay



Category: Mindhunter (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Breaking Up & Making Up, Established Relationship, Hand Jobs, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:34:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24577657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princesskay/pseuds/princesskay
Summary: For most of his life, Holden believed that no one could ever love him completely - until he met Bill. It’s nice, and for the first time in his life, he feels happy in a relationship; but insidiously, just like a black hole, his disorder absorbs and mangles everything - even the good.
Relationships: Holden Ford/Bill Tench
Comments: 43
Kudos: 110





	1. thievery, perfection, repulsion

**Author's Note:**

> By request from anonymous on tumblr 💛 Writing this fic also coincided with me finally buying Richard Siken's second book of poetry, War of The Foxes, and becoming absolutely entranced by the titular poem. I especially love the last couple verses in the poem, a little observation on the human condition that I thought fit with this fic really well:
> 
> _"He knows that when you snap a mast it's time to get a set of oars or learn how to breathe underwater. Rely on one thing too long and when it disappears and you have nothing - well, that's just bad planning. It's embarrassing to think it could never happen. It happens._
> 
> _You cannot get in the way of anyone's path to God. You can, but it does no good. Every spy knows this. Some say God is where we put our sorrow. God says, Which one of you fuckers can get to me first?_
> 
> _The spies meet at the chain-link fence and tell each other stories. A whisper system, a level of honesty. To testify against yourself is an interesting thing, a sacrifice. Some people do it. Some people find money in the street, but you can't rely on it. The fisherman's son is at the fence, waiting to see if he is useful._
> 
> _You cannot got in the way of anyone's path to happiness, it also does no good. The problem is figuring out which part is the path and which part is the happiness._
> 
> _It's a blessing: every day someone shows up at the fence. And when no one shows up, a different kind of blessing. In the wrong light, anyone can look like darkness."_

When Holden was eight years old, he saw a news report about an elderly man, a war veteran, who pulled out his shotgun on two men who were trying to rob his home, and was murdered by the thieves who were also armed. As horrifying as the crime was to their quiet slice of suburbia, most folks counted it as an anomaly and moved on. 

Not Holden. The thought crawled into his mind, burrowed deep, and made itself at home where it grew into a vicious, terrifying monster that outweighed every other fabricated fear of the dark he’d ever contended with. A year later, he was still suffering from the inescapable, obsessive thought - the concept, no matter how unlikely, that his house would be broken into and his parents would be killed. The fear grew so massively that it took up any idle thoughts, any moment of spare rumination, and intruded on his concentration during other activities quite frequently. Worst of all, the paralyzing fear kept him from sleeping most nights of the week, leading to hours of tossing and turning before he would dart out of bed to his parents’ room just to check that they were still okay. When he explained his fears to his parents, they did their best to assuage him, but none of their assurances could silence his troubled mind.

The fear would continue to plague him for another two years before his mind latched onto a new obsession. Perfection. Not just in school work - though receiving A’s was of utmost concern - but in his clothes, his belongings, and the order of the books on his shelves. It wasn't just an earnestness to do well in school that most smarter-than-average students experience. It was a gripping, sickening fear that if he didn't perform to the best of his ability, something terrible would happen. The nightly spiral of worrying, reassuring himself, and drowning in anxiety persisted, letting his parents sleep unprovoked through the night but keeping him alone and firmly in its grip. 

As if the terror about receiving high grades wasn't bad enough, he was the weird kid in his school, the one who sat by himself, had no friends, and got stared at in the lunch room when he religiously pulled out his wet-wipes to disinfect the area where he would be sitting each day. He could remember sitting in the grass during recess unable to disengage his mind and play with the others because he couldn't get the exact right knot in his tie. No matter how many times he pulled it loose and started over, the symmetry was never quite right, and he couldn’t take his mind off it until the teacher blew the whistle for the end of their half hour of play. 

The obsessions with perfectionism and cleanliness never slacked off, but come puberty, a fresh hell had opened up in his mind, an affliction which would follow him for years to come - sex. He couldn't stand to be touched or the thought of sexual activity without experiencing the most horrendous dose of fear and nausea. He could barely masturbate like most boys for fear that he would get dirty. While most of his peers surged through middle school, experimenting and having crushes on classmates, he lingered on the fringes of normal development, paralyzed by the mere thought of someone else seeing him naked, let alone touching him - let alone getting their own foreign filth on him. 

Despite graduating at the top of his class and quickly gaining entrance to Quantico, some of the darkest years were yet to come. The transition between living at home and moving to college was like a psychological torture chamber of separation anxiety, crushing self-doubt, and his always constant drive to overachieve. College should have been a clean slate for his reputation, but his ostracizing habits from high school spilled over easily into the dormitory where a discourteous series of roommates eventually led to his parents forking over the extra cash to secure him his own, private room. 

He nearly quit the first semester, calling his mother each evening on the verge of breaking down to explain to her that he just couldn’t do it. He thought he could, but he’d been fooling himself. Finally, his father took the phone away from her, and told Holden if he wasn’t going to start acting right and taking school seriously, he was going to be a failure for the rest of his life. The fear that quitting college could ruin his life for good superseded the unknown horrors of unsanitary classrooms and bathrooms and even the thought of receiving a B in a class. A B, after all, was better than no grade at all.

Then, midway through his second semester, he was taking a psychology class when a breakthrough occurred. He learned about Sigmund Frued and the term  _ obsessive compulsive disorder  _ while researching for a term paper. The section in the book was so small that it could have easily been missed, but the brief description sounded as if a stranger had peeked into his own tortured, anxiety-ridden mind. He immediately went to the library to investigate as many resources on the subject as he could. Surrounded by a mountain of psychology books in a quiet corner of the library, he read about the condition -  _ his condition - _ for the first time, feeling a mounting sense of horror coupled with aghast relief. He wasn't the only person in the world to experience the uncontrollable compulsions and thoughts he wrestled with every day, but the discovery meant only one thing to him - he was abnormal, crazy, and beyond help. 

Despite advancements in the field of psychology, there was no listed cure for OCD. A few trial medications were being introduced to the world, but the mainstream folks still relied mainly on the "talk therapy" that Freud pioneered. Holden had no intention of talking to anyone about the fact that his intrusive thoughts sometimes bordered on the deviant, unforgivable, and by some regards, insane. He didn’t think a therapist could make him stop washing his hands twenty times a day or avoiding public restrooms at all cost. Most of all, he didn’t think a therapist could fix his broken sex drive, an assembly of working parts that was missing just one thing - inclination. 

The discovery, however, did offer him the one recourse of self-help. He’d been blindly struggling through his condition for so long on his own that he didn’t think anyone was more equipped to put up new safeguards and implement effective strategies than himself. Armed with a new understanding of why some of his thoughts and habits were so uncontrollable, he set out to put the fractured pieces of himself back together on his own.

For several years, the advantage over his rebellious brain gave him an edge. He knew the thoughts were irrational, and he could sometimes convince himself that the world wouldn’t come to an end if he didn’t perform a certain compulsion. He tried to make friends. He excelled through his years in Detroit as a brick agent and managed to get into his dream job in hostage negotiation after only a few years with the Bureau.

In hostage negotiation, he didn’t have to physically interact with the suspect. He could stand outside a building and have a conversation without ever being touched by the criminal inside. And most days, he could understand from somewhere deep inside that people’s urges aren’t always directly linked to their moral compass - sometimes, something snaps and people do crazy, uncontrollable things. 

But, all that changed when a man committed suicide in front of him. Shepard pulled him out of hostage negotiation and into teaching, a post that Holden resented but figured he should make the best of. His own addiction to perfectionism allowed for no other strategy of attacking this new challenge, but his tenacity quickly created a new subset of issues. 

_ Psychology was for backroom boys.  _

Shepard had no idea who he was really talking to. Psychology had saved Holden’s life, at least in some respect, and the harsh rejection of his ideas only made him dig his heels in harder until Shepard submitted. 

And then, without proper warning, Bill Tench walked into Holden’s life. 

Though he was smitten from the start, Holden still hadn’t conquered one main issue in the whole disjointed mess that was his obsessive compulsive disorder. Sex. The tiny, three-letter word made his stomach sink with horror and his skin crawl. 

The few relationships he’d managed since college always ended the same way - him sabotaging them before they got too serious with the plauging fear that his significant other had gotten tired of his problems with sex and cheated on him with someone more able to satisfy their needs; and there wasn’t anything he could do about this shortcoming.The number of times he’d gritted his teeth through sex could be counted on one hand. None of his attempts had ever turned out to be pleasant or enjoyable - usually, the long shower afterwards to scrub all the sweat and bodily fluids from his skin, was more pleasurable than the act itself. 

Still, when Bill kissed him the first time, he couldn’t say no. For some reason, it didn’t make him recoil with disgust the way everyone else had. When Bill touched him, some of the anxiety in his mind quieted, and when they were together, he felt safe and sound. 

Holden had gotten pretty good at lying in a roundabout way about why he does all the obsessive little things that he does. When he lied to Bill about why he didn’t want to have sex, saying that it was because he’d never slept with another man, he didn’t feel bad about it; and Bill didn’t press. 

Besides, he couldn’t tell Bill that the idea of anal penetration and contamination was too arduous to bear. That would lead to other questions, other confessions. He couldn’t tell Bill that he bathes at least twice a day and would do it more often if he could. He couldn’t tell Bill that it took him years to use a public restroom without wanting to crumble into a paralyzed heap of terror. And he really couldn’t tell Bill that sometimes when he’s driving to work, he wonders what would happen if he simply swerved into oncoming traffic or purposefully struck a pedestrian using the crosswalk. Telling Bill about his sex repulsion meant telling Bill about his OCD; and telling Bill about his OCD meant revealing one horrifying fact about himself - sometimes, when he’s interviewing killers, he understands them more than normal people, and hearing all of the terrible, unforgivable things that they’ve done to other human beings makes him feel relieved that he’s never acted on his own dark, intrusive thoughts. 

For a few months, the arrangement is working perfectly fine. Holden comes over to Bill’s house and they hang out and watch movies. He lets Bill hold him and kiss him. They talk like they’re dating and Bill calls him ‘baby.’ It’s nice, and for the first time in his life, Holden feels happy in a relationship; but insidiously, just like a black hole, his disorder absorbs and mangles everything - even the good. 

~

The clock on the kitchen wall reads 12:22. Holden can see the glint of the gold second hand ticking persistently past each number in the dim light from the bulb above the sink. As he leans over the counter with the telephone pressed to his ear, he thinks he can hear the grate of the clock hands turning above the shrill ring of the phone and his own percussive heartbeat. 

Despite the cool October temperatures outside, he’s sweating. His skin is cold and clammy with gripping anxiety while his stomach sinks with dread. The obsessive thought clinging to his mind is like creeping ivy, wrapping itself around every idle part of his brain, insinuating itself into his deepest, most primal instincts. Already, he knows it’s crazy. Not impossible, but highly improbable. He knows it, but he can’t stop himself. 

The ringing cuts off, and there’s rustle across the line. 

“Hello?” Bill’s voice is half-asleep and confused. 

Holden sinks against the counter, relieved tears rushing to his eyes as the sound of Bill’s voice splashes like cold water across the wildfire racing across his mind. 

“Bill … thank God.”

“Holden? Are you okay?” Bill asks, tone quickly shifting to concern when he hears the emotion choking Holden’s words. 

Holden presses his fingertips to his tear ducts, stemming the flow of overwrought tears. 

“Yes.” He whispers. 

“What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

“No, I …”

There’s a beat of stifled silence as Holden swallows convulsively, trying to come up with a lie. He should have thought of this before he called, but he’d been too consumed with fear. He’d just wanted to hear Bill’s voice, but now that he can clearly hear that Bill is perfectly fine, the thought that he’s just woken him from a dead sleep is more excruciating. 

“I’m … I’m sorry.” Holden whispers, “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“What do you mean?” Bill presses, “Did something happen?”  
“I just … I had this dream.” 

Another moment of silence. Bill’s inhale scrapes across the line. 

“A dream?”

“Yes, I … A nightmare, really. I thought … I dreamed that you … that something terrible happened.”

“To me?”

“Yes.” 

“Oh.” Bill whispers, his tone softening. 

Holden closes his eyes, feeling shame heat his cheeks. It was the best lie he could think of, but it makes him sound childish and insipid. 

“Well …” Bill says, finally. “I’m fine. I’m at the hotel, alone, the door is locked.” 

Holden nods, trying to impress the reassurances into his racing mind. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Bill echoes, “You good?”

“Yes.” 

“Okay … I can’t stay up talking. I have to be back to the precinct tomorrow morning early.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”

“Yes. Okay.”

They hang up, and Holden leans over the kitchen counter with a weary sigh. He’d put off calling for as long as he could, about three hours after the terrible thought entered his mind. In that time frame, he’d experienced so much anxiety that he still feels jittery from the constant rush of adrenaline. His forearm hurts where he’d scratched himself, a poor attempt at distracting himself from the dreadful thought of Bill dying. 

He won’t be sleeping much tonight, he figures, so he sets himself up on the couch with his pillow, a blanket, and the television. 

Bill’s reassurances last for the space of four hours. He falls asleep watching late night reruns of TV mystery movies, and wakes with a cold, harrowing jolt deep in his stomach. 

It’s past four o’clock in the morning, but it doesn’t matter. Neither does the fact that Bill reassured him of his health only a few hours prior. The idea arises like a flood, swallowing him in a matter of seconds; and it isn’t just one single idea, but a whole hive of ideas - his mind conjuring scenarios, every possible way that Bill could have been injured. 

This time, his self-control lasts less than half an hour before he runs into the kitchen, dialing without thinking. 

The phone begins to ring, over and over, and with every shrill tone, he feels his body sinking toward the floor, caving beneath the massive weight of impending doom on his shoulders. His knees hit the tile just as the line clicks. 

Bill grunts something indistinguishable, barely a ‘hello’.

Holden begins to cry, leaning into the wall as that tiny sound shatters the gripping concept of some harm having befallen him. 

“Holden?” Bill whispers. 

Attempting to get his emotions under control, Holden draws in a hitched breath and nearly chokes on his tears. 

“Holden, what’s wrong?” Bill demands, concern sharpening his voice from sleep-laden to alert in a matter of seconds. “Are you okay?”

“No, I’m … I’m sorry.” Holden whimpers, rubbing fiercely at his cheeks to diminish his tears. 

“What happened? You’re crying-”

“No, I’m fine. I … I shouldn’t have called. I’m sorry.”

“Did you have another dream?”

Holden presses his eyes shut, deeply humiliated. 

“Yes.” He whispers, because it’s the only answer he can think of that maintains his cover. He doesn’t have another explanation, and he’s too tired to conjure a sensible lie. 

Bill sighs, softly. “Is something else the matter?”

“No.” 

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

“Holden,” Bill says, gently, “I don’t want an apology. I want you to tell me the truth.”

“I said I’m fine. I’m sorry I woke you up.”

Bill is quiet for a moment, absorbing Holden’s defensive response before he replies, “Okay. We’ll talk about this later.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. I’m okay. It was a stupid dream.”

“Yeah, okay.”

They hang up again, Bill’s unconvinced reply echoing in Holden’s mind. 

He stays up for another hour, wrestling with his thoughts. When he finally falls into an exhausted sleep, he doesn’t dream of blood or Bill dying. He dreams of being exposed, this terrible darkness inside him laid bare for Bill to see. And then, something nearly as terrible as death - Bill leaving and never wanting to see him again. 


	2. beer, bare, bathe

Bill comes back from the consult in Minnesota three days later. He calls Holden from the airport to let him know that he’d just landed, and asks if he can come over. 

Holden tries to mask the tremor in his voice when he agrees. After they hang up, he stands motionless in the kitchen for several minutes, his body paralyzed while his mind runs wild with threads of possibility. All at once, he can imagine every scenario - Bill’s frustration, his anger, his impatience, his disbelief, his demands; and his own responses, his fleeting attempts at explaining himself in a way that won’t make Bill hate him. 

_ I’m a terrible person. I know that. I think despicable thoughts every day. I push people away. I’m insufferable.  _

Holden glances down when the friction of his thumb rubbing against his fingertips and the clean edges of his nails starts to burn. The explanation circles in his mind, and he thinks he should probably lead with it. Rip off the band-aid. It will hurt less if he says it aloud instead of Bill. It will hurt less if he can justify why he’s ruined yet another relationship. 

Bill arrives half an hour later, the sound of his car door slamming from the curb below drawing Holden from the clamor of his thoughts. He gets up from the couch and paces, his stomach turning with sick knots. 

When the knock on the door echoes through his apartment, he thinks of running and hiding, but forces himself to answer the door. 

“Hi.” Bill says, a faint smile on his mouth.

“Hi.” Holden whispers, holding the door open for him to come inside. 

Bill is still in his work clothes except for his jacket and tie. The sight of him incites a pair of reflexes - relief and dread, the first one outweighing the second. He’s lived with dread long enough to push past it, and despite his fears that Bill might hate him, he’s too overjoyed to lay eyes on him again to let it hold him back. 

When Bill turns to face him, Holden throws himself against his chest. 

“Oh, hey.” Bill says, laughing softly as Holden’s weight settles warmly against him.

He wraps his arms around Holden’s shoulders, squeezing him close, and pressing a kiss to his hair. 

“I missed you.” Holden whispers, his voice muffled in Bill’s chest.

“Yeah, me too.”

Holden presses his eyes shut, and clings to Bill’s waist. He doesn’t want to let go because as soon as he pulls back, Bill might be able to see the truth in his eyes - all his fears, his insecurities, his spiraling thoughts. 

Cradling the back of Holden’s neck, Bill gently pries him away from his chest. The warm, strong breadth of his other hand secures Holden’s jaw and forces him to look up into his eyes. Holden shudders beneath Bill’s searching gaze, swallowing hard as pale blue eyes dissect him, probing for honesty. 

“Are you okay?” Bill asks, quietly.

Holden nods against Bill’s grasp on his chin.

“You sure?”

Holden’s eyelids slip shut as Bill leans closer, planting a slow kiss on his mouth. A shiver runs through him, need and doubt colliding. 

“You seem … agitated.” Bill says, his breath diffusing hotly across Holden’s cheeks.

Holden’s eyes spring open again, taking in Bill’s worried expression. 

“No, I … I’m fine.”

Bill sighs, and releases Holden’s chin. 

Holden takes a shuffled step backwards, every fiber of him reeling from the brief, yet powerful embrace. 

“You want something to drink?” He asks, willing his nails away from the inside of his wrist as anxiety crawls beneath his skin. 

“Sure.”

Holden nods, and escapes into the kitchen before Bill’s cunning, unnerving gaze can threaten to unravel his composure. When he pulls the refrigerator door open, the yellow light from the tiny bulb inside and the rush of chilled air momentarily soothes him. He leans against the cool, plastic panel of the freezer door while he peers down into the refrigerator, silently counting to ten in his head. With a few deep breaths, the thought of preemptively breaking things off with Bill retreats from his mind, and the sudden distance from his panic makes the terrified spiral look silly and ridiculous. 

He can’t break things off with Bill. Bill is the only one who has ever stuck around long enough to understand him, even if it is just on a surface level. He puts up with Holden’s obsessive cleanliness, his rambling thoughts, his peculiarities. Maybe he wouldn’t be so judgmental if Holden opened up; maybe, just maybe-

“Holden?”

Holden startles, his gaze swinging from its blank stare into the refrigerator to see Bill standing in the entryway of the kitchen, a frown knitting his brow. 

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I um … I was just thinking.”

“About the beer?”

Holden manages a chuckle as he bends down to grab two beers from inside the fridge. He kicks the door shut behind him, and hands one of the bottles off to Bill on his way into the living room. 

“So, how was Minnesota?” He asks. 

“Cold.”

Holden sinks down to the couch, and takes a sip of his beer. “Mm, nothing like a Midwest winter. And the case?”

“We caught a break. The guy had been questioned previously.” Bill says, sitting down next to him. “I’m glad it's over. I didn’t get much sleep.”

The remark plunks down between them, blatant and questioning. Holden’s chest tightens as he glances away. His palm is somehow sweaty despite the stark cold glass of the beer clutched in his hand. 

Bill’s lighter clicks open and scratches to life. Holden smells smoke before he sees it from the corner of his eye, and the faint irritant against his frayed nerves makes him want to run for his life. Instead, he stays bolted to the sofa cushions, his body locked in paralyzed dread. 

“I’m not trying to pry.” Bill says, softly. “I’m just concerned.”

Holden stares at the fabric of his trousers stretched over his knees. Every explanation and assurance he’d tried to conjure over the past few days flees his mind, even the self-deprecating ones which usually arrive with ease. 

“You’re under a lot of stress. I get that. We all are.” Bill continues, his tone low, gentle, and unaccusing. 

Holden lifts a trembling hand to rub his thumb and forefinger against his eyelids. His tear ducts are stinging with repressed tears, a crushing, reverse gravity keeping it all bottled inside. 

Bill sighs softly when he doesn’t answer. He sets his beer on the coffee table and his cigarette in the ashtray before shifting closer to Holden. 

Holden peeks up at him as Bill’s body heat approaches, and clings to his side. One arm snakes around his shoulders, knuckles nudging against his chin to keep him from looking away. 

“You’re still having them, aren’t you?” Bill murmurs, the gray-blue of his eyes cradling Holden like a rocking ocean, compelling him toward honesty. “The panic attacks?”

Holden purses his lips, and clings to the grounding, cold glass of the beer bottle. He’s at the tipping point - the moment in every other relationship where he’d sabotaged the connection in favor of self-preservation, choosing to lash out aggressively to scare off the threat of the truth rather than let someone else inside his mind. He could do it now - it’s a knee jerk instinct at this point - but Bill’s presence is like a heavy blanket on top of his revolting limbs. There’s some sedative in his eyes and his touch that Holden has never felt before, begging him to set aside old patterns, to sacrifice himself this time instead. 

He gives a slight nod. 

Bill’s brow pinches with compassion, and he releases a slow exhale. “Jesus, Holden. I wish you had told me. You can tell me these things, talk to me.”

Holden closes his eyes as Bill’s palm swallows up his cheek, thumb grazing against soft skin just below the corner of his eye. He lets out a shuddering sigh, leaning closer to Bill’s embrace as the crushing weight of dread eases by some small measure. Nudging his forehead against Bill’s, he slips a hand up Bill’s belly and chest to clutch at the front of his shirt. 

“I don’t want to talk about it right now.” He whispers, cracking his moist eyelids open to glimpse Bill’s worried stare. 

Bill’s frown deepens. “Holden-”

“Not right this second. Please.” 

“Okay. But we have to eventually.”

“Later.” 

Before Bill can conjure a reply, Holden leans in to press a rushed kiss on his mouth. Bill goes still against him as their lips collide, a hasty, flimsy band-aid applied to a gushing wound. Ignoring the alarm bells ringing in his head, Holden pushes away from the cushions, and blindly stretches out his arm to discard the beer on the coffee table. Grabbing onto Bill’s shirt with both hands he pulls himself over to straddle Bill’s lap. 

Bill grunts softly as Holden’s weight settles in his lap. Clutching at Holden’s waist, he tilts his mouth up into the kiss, and opens his lips to return the deepening, hungry gestures. His tongue curls hot and sweet against Holden’s lips, smoothing past his teeth, his tongue, against the roof of his mouth. The strokes evolve, quickly and deftly careening past Holden’s fumbling attempts and taking control of the kiss. 

Holden wraps his arms around Bill’s neck, and sinks down into the biting, suckling kiss and the strength of Bill’s hands climbing his spine. Fear claws at the back of his mind, innate instincts screaming at him to put an end to this reckless attempt at covering his illness before it’s too late; but he’s already in it, barreling forward, keen on proving that he can have his neuroses and this too - he can handle them both in the same space, he can conquer his fears. 

Bill’s fingers peel the hem of his shirt back and crawl underneath, against warm, trembling skin. Humid breaths crowd between their mouths as the kiss disconnects. Their noses collide, gazes peering hesitantly back and forth. He pushes his hands upward, feeling along Holden’s shivering spine, one palm creeping around to cradle his pec. 

Bill glances up at him, hesitation shining past need. 

“Are you sure about this?” He whispers, hands stroking bare, prickling skin. 

“Mm.” Holden chokes out, pressing his eyes shut and rocking his hips forward into the solid warmth of Bill’s body. “Mm-hmm.” 

Bill’s mouth clings to the corner of his mouth as he keeps going, one hand tracing the length of Holden’s spine while the other toys gently with his nipple.

Holden bites back a whimper as his whole body seizes. White blazes across his mind, a blinding concoction of panic and desire. Bill’s touch makes him tremble with fierce arousal that’s almost evenly matched by the fear that this encounter is treading closer and closer towards something real - and he isn’t sure if he wants to stop it altogether, or push it forward towards a natural conclusion. 

Bill’s gaze clings onto Holden’s, watching him carefully as he pushes the shirt up. 

Holden swallows hard, and lifts his arms. He can’t help the shiver that runs through him as Bill gently strips the shirt away, and runs his eyes over Holden’s bare chest. He leans forward, planting a slow kiss against Holden’s shoulder as he pinches softly at his nipple.

Holden clutches at Bill’s chest, forcing himself not to wrench away. He’s rock hard inside his briefs, undeniably so, his silenced sexual urges clamoring to be let free. It’s easy enough to enjoy the arousal, pushing himself right to the edge before stopping at the point of release, when he’s alone; but this is Bill touching him, not his own hand. He can’t make it stop right before true release comes, before pent-up semen gushes across his repulsed skin. 

“Is this okay?” Bill murmurs, kissing along his collarbone. 

Holden purses his lips against a choked groan. He nods again. 

Cradling Holden’s backside, Bill trails his hand down from his nipple, past his trembling belly, to his cock throbbing against his trousers. The touch is slow and searching, not brutal or grabbing. It carefully feels out the length of his erection, easing his body into the touch and begging it not to pull away. 

Holden stiffens, caught between the pleasure of the caress and his own irrational fears. His panic is screaming at him to make this stop, but his body, silenced and suppressed for too long, is aching for it to continue - and beneath the thought that his own release could somehow contaminate him forever, he does want it. He’s wanted it for so long, for the entire history of their relationship. 

“Fuck …” Bill mutters, his mouth and breath hot against Holden’s throat. “You’re so hard.”

Holden’s mouth trembles open. He should try to say something sexy in response, but his mind is a vast and vacant wilderness of reawakening need, muted panic, undiscovered urges. 

Bill’s mouth stamps against his throat and jawline, expelling a hot blast of breath against his ear. “Fuck. I want to see you come.”

Holden leans closer, the rigidity in his limbs momentarily going weak. He drops his head down against Bill’s neck, hiding what’s sure to be a conflicted expression of horror and need on his face. 

“Please …” He whispers, his voice staggering from his throat. 

Bill doesn’t stop kissing him - his earlobe, his neck, his shoulder. They fall in a raining, scattered pattern as if he can’t get enough of the taste of Holden’s skin, as if he’s a blank canvas that has never been caressed or kissed before; and Holden sinks into it, silencing his doubts, plunging ahead and bent on giving himself over to his own needs just this one time. 

He squeezes his eyes shut as he pushes up on his knees long enough to let Bill strip him out of his trousers. Heated skin breathes against the touch of cool air, the sense of naked vulnerability casting goosebumps and waves of heat down his body. His bare backside settles down against Bill’s thighs, and the simple scratch of foreign fabric makes him want to orgasm and flee all at once. 

Bill leans back to peruse Holden’s naked body straddling his lap. His broad chest rises with a staggered breath as he lays eyes on Holden’s cock, all hard and pink and throbbing against his pale, quivering belly. 

“Jesus.” He whispers, his hand urgently pressed to Holden’s lower back and drawing him closer. 

Holden’s face goes hot as the weight of Bill’s gaze buzzes across his taut nerves. His cock gives a needy jolt, instinctively aroused by Bill’s appreciation even if his mind is wildly racing with conflicted impulses. 

He swallows convulsively while Bill runs his hand over his shoulder and chest, down his heaving ribs, against his bare hip. Everywhere that he touches sparks with electric flame, leaving behind a humming sensation that seems to reach down into his bones. He squirms impatiently on Bill’s lap as the caress wanders lower and lower, creeping towards its inevitable destination. 

As Bill’s palm settles on Holden’s thigh, he lifts his head to smother Holden’s choked moan with another kiss. Their mouths tangle, limply wrestling back and forth, devolving into open-mouthed, slick grazes of lips and tongue. 

Holden is dizzy, breathlessly panting when Bill’s mouth comes away again. He slips his eyes open to see Bill gazing up at him, eyes half-shut with pleasure and need. 

“Are- … are you going to-” Holden begins, his voice strangled. 

Bill teeth push against his lower lip, a faint smile quivering underneath. “Touch you?”

Holden shudders, and gives a weak nod. 

“You want me to?”

“It seemed like … like you were about to-”

“Yeah, I want to.” Bill murmurs, “Do you want me to?”

Holden shifts in Bill’s lap. His body is roaring with separating impulses, fear and need pulling him in opposite directions, threatening to tear him clean in two. Bill is asking for honesty in a way they haven’t discussed before, and he could have said no. Maybe if he wasn’t so naked and hard and halfway to orgasm, he could have said no. 

“Yes.” He whispers, the small yet heavy word peeling itself from the shuddering walls of his chest. 

“Okay, good.” Bill murmurs, lifting his hand to his mouth. 

Holden bites back a whine as Bill spits into his palm. He looks away instinctively, his stomach clenching. 

_ It’s just saliva. It’s fine. His tongue was in my mouth two seconds ago.  _

The quiet reassurance keeps him grounded in place until Bill’s palm, slick with spit, touches him. Then, he can’t run, or think, or hardly breathe because the touch gathers him in up, smooths softly down his aching, pulsing shaft, drags back up again over the tender head; and he’s frozen in place, tethered to this moment by sensations he can’t ignore or deny, by a compounding need that fear has held him back from for far too long. 

Silence stretches on, interrupted only by the wet friction of Bill’s hand stroking his cock. Holden’s eyes are squeezed shut, his body crouched rigidly over Bill’s chest. He clings to the front of Bill’s shirt while his body wrestles back and forth, longing for release that seemed imminent only moments ago. 

Bill strokes him purposefully, drawing out the sensation to an unbearable pressure and ache. His mouth stamps against Holden’s throat, mouth and nose nuzzling beneath his earlobe and jawline where tension resides. 

“How’s this?” He murmurs, working his fist slowly over Holden’s hardened cock. 

Holden gives a clipped nod. “G-good.”

“Relax.” Bill urges, rubbing his other hand down the ramrod tension in Holden’s spine. He plants a warm kiss below Holden’s ear. “Relax, okay? I’ve got you.”

Holden nods, trying to mentally uncurl the fist in the back of his mind fighting against the thought of orgasming and coming all over himself and Bill’s hand. Bill doesn’t seem to mind the thought of it, so why should he? 

Holden tries to relax, but as he spends more time thinking about letting go of the rigidity in his body the harder it becomes to focus on the pleasure rippling just beneath the surface. Quiet moans urge from the back of his throat as Bill’s hand goes on caressing him, the minutes stretching out achingly long, chafing against his patience and his composure. Finally, he lets out a frustrated sigh, and presses a hand over his face. 

“I’m sorry.” He whispers. 

“What? What’s wrong?” Bill asks, gently, his hand easing against Holden’s cock. 

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” Holden says, the lie slipping easily past his lips. “You don’t have to keep going. It’s me-”

“Do you want me to stop?” 

“No, but-”

“Okay, then.”

Bill clutches Holden’s waist, and swiftly lifts him off his lap and onto the sofa cushions. Holden opens his mouth to argue, but Bill reclines him back against the pillow tucked against the arm of the couch. His mouth comes down again, silencing Holden’s rising frustrations and panic, urging the need back to the surface. 

Bill’s mouth lifts from the kiss, and he pins Holden with a firm gaze. 

“Take a few deep breaths.” He instructs, softly, “Close your eyes, and relax.” 

Holden swallows hard, and tries to comply. As his breath wobbles past his lips, Bill kisses him on the cheek. 

“There you go.” He murmurs, his hand trailing down Holden’s shuddering ribs and the bare swell of his hip. He gently opens Holden’s legs, exposing the severity of his need, the way his cock throbs against the pale wash of his belly. 

Holden glances down at his body stretched out beneath Bill’s touch and nearly cries when he sees how swollen and deeply pink his cock is. 

“Fuck.” Bill whispers, running his knuckles down the length of Holden’s cock. “Look how fucking hard you are.”

Holden shudders, his hips lurching beneath the faint touch. “Oh my god …”

“You want to cum, don’t you?”

Holden nods, vehemently. 

“You’re going to.” Bill promises, sinking down to the carpet between Holden’s open legs. “So fucking hard.”

Holden gasps as Bill’s hand circles the root of his cock, firmly directing it to his mouth. His back arches tautly, his whole body swept up in waves of hot tingles and demanding, aching arousal. Clinging to the couch, he tries to hold onto his sense of control, but any kind of reservation is stripped away by the slick, hot clutch of Bill’s mouth around him. Holden’s mouth stretches open in a hollow, breathless cry, every fiber screaming some kind of hazy, half-sick hallelujah. His mind is swimming too hard to comprehend its usual string of compulsion, the conclusions about contamination, the disgust at being touched and soiled; this doesn’t feel dirty, it feels like something else he’s never felt before. He doesn’t remember letting go of his fear and doubts. He only remembers the moment the switch flipped, when he felt his body release and let go, the handful of bright, exploding seconds in which the most powerful orgasm he’d ever had swallowed him up. 

“Oh my God, I’m coming-” He cries out, the realization striking with shocked disbelief. 

Bill’s mouth comes off of him, hand returning to jerk up and down the shaft as Holden’s release begins to jet copiously from his cockhead. 

Holden’s body seizes as the spasms hit, each one coming in like a rip current to snap his feet out from under him. He clutches onto the cushions, and hears himself moan - moaning like a virgin or a monk, like a boy that’s never been touched in his life. This orgasm is unlike every other hard-fought release he’s ever felt; not subjected to fear and horror, not quelled by rising nausea, not yanked free of his body like an embedded, rotten tooth meant to be rejected and discarded the moment it’s gone. Every inch of him is rejoicing, living in these small, red-lit moments, and clinging onto this sense of freedom - a feeling he knows will be gone as soon as the endorphins fade from his bloodstream. 

Holden sinks down against the couch cushions, breathing heavily. The orgasm sizzles in his veins, aftershocks rippling down into his tender, spent groin. He feels raw, used, relieved of his harrowing thoughts for a few exhaling seconds that are already sharpening into petrified awareness. 

He keeps his eyes squeezed shut for a long moment, ignoring the cooling trickle of cum dribbling across his belly and chest. The nausea is quick to rise, his skin crawling beneath the shower of his own release already lukewarm and drying. Tears press hot against the corners of his eyes, humiliation stunning the bubbly warmth of the aftermath that most people can sink into and enjoy. 

Bill’s mouth presses against his knee, a row of kisses meant as a praise. 

“Jesus.” He whispers, “I told you you were going to cum hard, but … fuck-”

Holden’s eyelids wander open, peering down his slick belly and wilted cock with trembling alarm. The press of tears increases until his view of Bill crouched between his shuddering thighs and kissing his knee blurs. 

He blinks hard, forcing a tear free of his eyelid. 

Bill glances up at him, his satisfaction quickly transitioning into worried panic. 

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

Holden sits up abruptly, his body surging with a fresh rotation of compulsion. Whatever fear Bill’s touch had smothered rises up now like an untamable beast, bent on destroying him, bent on destroying this moment. He can’t stand the feeling of his own skin, the raw hum of orgasm, the wet cum drying on his belly. He needs to bathe, not just for ten minutes, but for an hour; he needs to crawl out of this soiled skin if he can. 

“Holden?” Bill’s voice is sharp with alarm. 

Holden scrambles to his feet, tripping past the coffee table in his dash for the bathroom. 

“Holden, wait a minute. What happened?”

Ignoring the sound of Bill’s voice, Holden rushes down the hallway and into the bathroom. Slamming the door shut behind him, he turns the lock with shuddering fingers. Nausea roils in the pit of his stomach as he yanks the door of the shower stall open, and clambers inside. Cranking on the hot water, he throws himself beneath the relieving, burning spray. 

Once the worst of it is washed away, he drenches his wash rag with soap, and scrubs himself down. Chest, belly, arms, back, legs, feet - five passes until the cloying sensation of release and sweat begins to wash away, until the familiar routine begins to ease his panic. 

After he washes his hair, he sits down on the floor of the shower with the cooling water pounding against his shoulders. Crossing his arms over his knees, he lowers his forehead to their cradle and shuts his eyes. 

_ I’m a terrible person. I know that. I think despicable thoughts every day. I push people away. I’m insufferable.  _ The thought resurfaces, a kind of inescapable truth that always surpasses everything else, even the pleasure of what he and Bill had just experienced together. The black hole opens its maw and sucks them in; eventually, it will spit Bill out and keep Holden, isolating him forever. 

Before the water goes cold, he knows what he has to do. 

~

When Holden emerges from the bathroom, Bill is sitting on the couch with his elbows braced against his knees, one hand holding onto a dwindling cigarette while the other rubs anxiously across his forehead. The squeak of the floorboard beneath Holden’s feet draws his frayed gaze up from the carpet. He goes still as their gazes meet, but a frown mars his brow. 

Holden clears his throat. “Before you ask, it wasn’t your fault.”

Bill stamps his cigarette out in the ashtray, and rises slowly to his feet. “No? Then what the hell happened?" 

“It was my fault.”

Bill’s nostrils flare with a slow breath. “I’m sorry. I’m confused. You said-”

“I know what I said. I shouldn’t have said it. I shouldn’t have let you …” Holden glances away, drawing in a deep breath. 

He’s done this before. Ruined a relationship. It shouldn’t be so hard - all he does is throw all of his self-hatred and frustration and disgust outward, make that person hate him so that they never think about coming back or forgiving him. Why does this time seem so difficult? 

“Holden, if this is about some kind of sexuality crisis … I understand.” Bill says, “I get it. I’ve been there.”

“No.” Holden says, sharply, holding up a hand. “Please, don’t.”

“You can talk to me about this stuff.”

“I don’t want to talk.” Holden says, opening his eyes to cast Bill a hardened gaze. “I want you to leave.”

Bill’s eyes go soft and hazy, wounded. His mouth moves in wordless disbelief before hardening into a thin line.

“Please. Just go.” Holden says, forcing an edge into his voice. 

Tearing his eyes away from Bill’s, Holden rubs a hand over his face to dispel the threat of tears. He’s trying to gather his ire, make himself harsh and angry, unforgivable. If he crumbles now, Bill might see right through him. He has to make this a clean break. 

“No.” Bill says, softly. 

Holden looks up, eyes stinging, but he can only draw in a shuddering breath as Bill marches across the room with determination gleaming past the wound in his eyes. He clutches onto Holden’s hands when he reaches him, stopping Holden from pulling away. 

“Look at me.” Bill says, firmly. 

Holden hesitantly meets his gaze, shuddering beneath the intensity of it. 

“I know I’ve been hard on you in the past, but things are different now. You can talk to me, okay?” Bill says, his tone softening. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Holden tries to look away, but Bill’s hand cradles his cheek, drawing his chin back up. 

“Holden, talk to me.” Bill insists, his eyes pinched with frustration. 

Holden swallows hard. He wants to collapse into that invitation, but he’s dug his own grave and made his own bed. He has to finish it. 

“You wouldn’t understand.” He says. 

“Try me.”

“You don’t want that.” Holden says, pressing his eyes shut. “Trust me.”

“You think you’re going to scare me away? I can handle it whatever it is you want to throw at me.”

Holden pulls his hands free of Bill’s grasp, and takes a sharp step backwards, feeling anger flare in his chest. There it is - his own self-destruction rising up, parading itself as self-preservation so that he can never quite know which one is the truth. But it’s fair and familiar, and he latches onto it. 

“You want the truth?” He asks, “Really, Bill? You know what I do. You were there in the Speck interview, with OPR, in Vacaville. Kemper, panic attacks, Atlanta. This is what I am - I ruin everything that I touch; and you want me to ruin you to?”

“Ruin me?” Bill echoes, his expression hurt and bewildered. 

“Yes. You want me to tell you that I love you?” Holden presses, throwing up his hands. “Fine. Maybe I do, but in a little while, you’re going to realize what a curse that is. You don’t want me to love you. I’m just going to hurt you, the way I’m hurting you right now. I’m going to take whatever it is you’re willing to give me, and then I’m going to leave you and you’re going to be left hating me for it. I don’t want you to hate me, Bill. I really don’t-”

“I don’t hate you.”

“No. Not yet. So we might as well stop while we’re ahead.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means I’m saving you the trouble. Because I am not worth it.  _ This _ -” Holden says, gesturing wildly between them, “-is not worth it.”

“How do you know that if you won’t even try?” Bill demands, stretching out his hands as true anger runs rampant through his voice. “I mean, come on, Holden. Our first fight, and you just want to give up?”

“I’ve been down this road, Bill. I know where it ends!”

“Been down this road? When? With who?”

“People. Other people who-”

“Not me.”

“Oh, so you think you’re different?” Holden cries, tears pressing hot at his eyelids, and a little voice in the back of his mind whispering that it’s true. He quickly smothers it, swiping at the moisture trickling down his cheek. “You’re not! I’m doing it to you already. Right now. Can’t you see that?”

“Then stop. For fuck’s sake, stop. We don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, we do.”

“Why?” Bill asks, his hands curled into fists at his sides, his cheeks flushed with rising anger. “Tell me, Holden. Why is it incumbent upon you to end this thing that we have - this  _ good thing _ ?”

“You disgust me!” Holden shouts, the words ripping from his chest, not from a place of truth but of shame, a punch of gut-wrenched horror that he can’t erase. He jabs a hand at the sofa cushions where Bill had touched him. “What we just did disgusts me!”

Bill takes a staggered step backwards, his face going slack with hurt disbelief. His chest rises with a shuddering breath as his brow furrows and eyes race, searching for a reply. 

Holden looks away, pressing his eyes shut against tears. 

“Do you …” He whispers, his voice faltering before he begins again. “Do you  _ really  _ want to be with someone who can’t stand the thought of sex? Who needs a shower immediately after you touch them?”

They’re both quiet for a long moment, raspy and broken breaths replying in discordant, fragmented syllables across the widening divide between them. 

Finally, Holden looks up from the carpet, mustering the most hardened gaze he can manage even with the hot tears trickling down his cheeks. Bill is staring back at him, a mix of shock and horror written across his face. He hasn’t conjured a reply, or some valiant, self-sacrificial devotion. He knows the end of this story the same as Holden. 

“That’s what I thought.” Holden whispers. 

Bill stands still for a moment longer before turning on his heel. He marches toward the door, his head bent and his shoulders drawn. 

“Bill-” Holden says, his voice choking even as he tries to swallow it down. 

Bill pauses with his hand on the doorknob, but he doesn’t look back. 

“I’m sorry.” 

There’s a brief pause. Holden thinks Bill might look back.  _ Might look back and see him, love him still.  _ Instead, he forces the door open, and disappears out into the hall, leaving the door to slam shut behind him. 

Holden stands in the hollow echo of his apartment, listening to the brick and mortar inside of his mind begin to build its walls back up again. He doesn’t cry anymore, but feels a kind of cowardly relief that always comes when he isolates himself again. At least when he’s alone, he can’t hurt anyone. He should look into the darkness and keep walking. The fading light behind him - the shower of exploding stars that took lightyears to reach him - will guide his way ahead. 


	3. river, relapse, restitution

The next week, Bill and Holden throw themselves into their work. They’re both good at pretending as if they’re simply partners, an effort they had made for the better part of two years before the truth came out. Down in the basement, there’s no windows and no sunlight, no markers of the outside world except for crime scene photographs and interview transcripts. It’s easy enough to pretend as if nothing happened. 

They stay in their respective offices except for their daily round table meetings in the conference room with the rest of the unit. It’s all formal and professional. Bill only speaks to him in respect to the current profile or interview they’re working on. 

To say it feels good would be a delusion. The word he’s looking for is ‘relief’. He’s had exes who didn’t want to let go. People who fought tooth and nail, and ended up despising him for it. People who just couldn’t understand what went wrong. People who he spent one night with that wouldn’t stop calling and wondering why it would only ever be one night. The fact that Bill can pretend like they’re back to the way they were before - partners, friends, or something benign and castrated such as that - is a weight off his shoulders. Bill can hate him privately - that’s to be expected; it’s the public shaming that he wouldn’t have been able to handle. 

The cold shoulder goes on for two weeks. It’s another timely relief when Holden is called out of town for a consult in New Jersey. He goes willingly, grateful for the distance a work trip provides.

The bodies washing up on the side of the Hudson River are sickly bloated and dirty, and Holden keeps away from the crime scenes as much as possible. He prefers to stay at the precinct where he can objectively look at the evidence on the corkboard, the rows of pictures creating an ugly mural of death and destruction; but when the fourth body is discovered on his second day in the city, he goes with the lead detective to scout the fresh scene. 

When he lays eyes on the body in person, he feels that first perforation in the walls of his composure, a small crack in the dam that threatens to disable the entire structure. It had rained the night before, and the riverbed is slick and muddy. The water smells like salt and dead fish, like a diseased, eaten away body floating to the surface. He shivers on the side of the water while the body is photographed and evidence is collected; and he knows he’ll never be able to get this image out of his head, the one that’s slowly being superimposed by Bill’s face. 

Back at the hotel, he takes a long, hot shower in an attempt to wash away the layer of grime and horror crawling like a thousand ants across his skin. But the fear is back, and worse than ever. After two weeks of putting Bill as far from his mind as he possibly can, those carefully raised walls implode. 

Holden paces in his room, glancing at the telephone. Every inch of him is begging him to cave, to set aside his pride, to call. He just wants to reassure himself that Bill is okay. It doesn’t have anything to do with their broken relationship. It’s just another compulsion, one that he had hoped would circle the drain right along with their romance; but it hasn’t. So he can call. It doesn’t mean anything. He just needs to call. 

Frustrated with his battling thoughts and anxieties, Holden leaves the hotel, and walks down the street until he reaches Central Avenue which overlooks the Hudson River and cowers beneath the glittering expanse of the George Washington Bridge. Beyond the water, the lights of Manhattan are bright and myriad, and a breeze floats across the broad distance to soothe his burning cheeks. 

For anyone else, a slow walk along the water while the sun goes down would have made for a relaxing evening. Instead, the foreign surroundings only make the dread in Holden’s chest compound, the compulsion itch uncontrollably through his limbs, and the terrorized thought of Bill dying or falling ill balloon into some swollen, unavoidable fiction. 

Despite the chilly breeze, Holden is sweating and trembling beneath his overcoat as he makes his way down the street to the payphone. The booth is backlit by the red neon sign of the Chinese takeout joint stationed at the corner of the block, and the light illuminates every greasy fingerprint and stain on the glass left behind by thousands of visitors. Ignoring the grimy state of the phone booth, Holden shoulders his way inside, and uses a handful of change to make the call. Cradling the receiver in a handkerchief, he holds it near his ear, careful to avoid contact with the dirty plastic. 

The phone rings half a dozen times before the line picks up, and Holden is nauseated and thinking of hanging up just before Bill’s voice reaches from the other end. 

“Hello?”

Holden presses his eyes shut as relief and anxiety clash in the knotted tangle of his belly.

“Hi.” He breathes out.

Bill’s silence hums densely across the line. 

“It’s me… Holden.” 

“I know who it is.”

“Okay, I-I wasn't…. I'm sorry. I know it’s late.” 

“What’s going on?” Bill asks, his tone guarded and rife with impatience. 

“Nothing, I just …”

They’re both quiet again. It’s the first time they’ve spoken outside of work, and it feels awkward enough. Holden can’t admit to having a “bad dream” again.

“I took a walk.” Holden whispers, his eyelids creeping open to melted, neon red and the prattle of a group of teens walking arm-in-arm past him down the sidewalk.

“Okay.” Bill says, slowly. 

“I hate it here.” Holden murmurs, shifting his gaze toward the winking lights of the bridge. “But this part isn’t too bad.” 

“What part?”

“I took a walk down Central Avenue. You can see the George Washington Bridge and Manhattan from here.”

_ If you were here with me, we could go spend the evening in New York.  _ The thought crops up in the back of his mind, but he swallows it down. 

Bill sighs. “Why are you calling me, Holden?”

Holden presses his mouth shut, and clutches the phone tighter. 

“And please-” Bill adds, his tone dripping with acidic cynicism. “Don’t fucking tell me you miss me.”

Holden’s chest twinges, tears stinging the corners of his eyes.  _ I do. I really fucking do.  _

“Okay.” Bill says as the silence extends. “I’m hanging up now.”

“Bill, wait.”

“What?”

“I … I’m sorry.”

“You said that already.”

“I know. I know. But you didn’t hear me the first time.”

“I heard you perfectly fine. That doesn’t change what you did.”

“Okay. Fine. I shouldn’t have called.” Holden says, pushing his knuckle against the corner of his eye to smudge a tear. “But I just- … I want you to understand, it wasn’t you. You were … you were great. Perfect, actually. It’s me. I ruin everything. I should have never let us be anything more than friends. It was a mistake for us to see each other romantically - my mistake. I should have known what I'd do, how it would end up-”

“Why do you keep saying that?” Bill asks, “You make it sound like you had no choice in the matter.”

“Because of … I- … I can’t explain it right now.”

“Why not?”

“You wouldn’t understand. There’s things about me that-”

“Things? What things, Holden? I’ve seen things, too.” Bill says, “My own son was involved in the murder of a child. I didn't disown him. It’s what you do when you love someone. I don’t know what I can say to make you understand that whatever it is that’s going on with you, I’ll find a way to deal with it - but not if you keep shutting me out.” 

“Love?”

Bill lets out an exasperated sigh. “Fucking Christ, Holden. If you don’t get that by now-”

Holden blinks, staring at the whorls of some other person’s handprint stamped on the glass of the phone booth in front of him. Someone else who had stood here missing home, listening to a distant voice over the telephone, and crying. Did they ever learn to fix their mistakes? If so, it would make them a better person than him.

“Look,” Bill says, finally. “I don’t believe in fate, or kismet, or whatever the fuck you want to call it. Shit happens because we make choices. Nothing is out of our control except other people’s choices. So if you want me to give up on this, fine, but don’t expect me to believe that it was what was always going to happen. That’s bullshit, and you know it. The sooner you start accepting responsibility for your actions the better you’ll feel about yourself. I’m not going to stand here and be your excuse.”

Holden’s mouth slips partially open. He wants to cry that Bill doesn’t understand. He’s sick - mentally sick and disturbed - and if he could change that he would. But maybe that’s just falling into an old pattern of thinking that has failed him time and again. Before he can decide which it is, Bill’s voice slips across the receiver as smoothly as the lapping water of the Hudson. 

“I’m sorry. I want to be there for you, but you’re making it hard - fucking impossible. If you want to talk, great. But I need honesty. Don’t call me like this, and then make  _ me  _ feel bad about how things ended between us.”

“I’m sorry, too. That isn’t what I was trying to do. I was just worried about you.”

“Worried?”

Holden closes his eyes, feeling his stomach turn. “Never mind. I’ll let you go.”

“Okay.” Bill says, his voice softening. “Be careful out there.”

“I will.” 

“Okay, bye.” 

Holden hangs up the phone, and carefully folds the handkerchief so that the soiled side won’t touch his pocket. Slipping out of the phone booth, he stands in the neon glow for a long time watching cars rush past, feeling his feet and hands go cold in the numbing November breeze. For a moment, he entertains the thought of running towards the lights of the bridge and Manhattan and never looking back; but eventually, he trudges back towards his hotel room because people's lives depend on him - and more than that, running has never fixed anything. Somewhere deep in his chest, he knows Bill is right. At some point, he’s going to have to turn around and face the damage. He’s going to have to look at the wreckage of his life and find something worth saving. If that something is good enough, maybe Bill will forgive him one day. It’s a thought that makes him want to try. 

~

Holden wanted to try. He wanted more than anything to come clean, to be honest, to tell Bill the truth that he’s been dragging behind him like his own personal cross for the better part of his life. On the plane ride home from New Jersey, he even tried composing a speech that might be equal parts honest and mitigating. The truth without the resulting pain. His condition without rejection. 

This point is the crux of the problem where he gets trapped in an endless feedback loop of reasoning and dread. He lived with dark thoughts long before he ever discovered the term  _ obsessive compulsive disorder _ , and as such, had spent nearly ten years believing he was simply a bad person. Despite the safety net of a real, diagnosable condition, the belief is too ingrained to easily reject it. As much as he wants to believe it’s not his fault and that his brain is always going to be working against him no matter what he does, it’s hard to imagine that he’s more good than bad; and if he believes it with such intensity, why wouldn’t Bill? Why wouldn’t any sane person look at him and think he’s crazy, repulsive, and irredeemable? 

When Holden gets back from the New Jersey consult, the dark, gripping spiral of thoughts intensifies to a nearly suffocating degree. He can’t sleep at night thinking about Bill discovering the truth about him and realizing how terrible he truly is. If he thought Holden calling him disgusting was bad, he should see some of the other sordid thoughts inside his brain. It would all go south from there, he’s certain. 

Though he’s spent a lifetime pretending to be normal and functioning with a great deal of anxiety in the background of his mind, this time is different. When the object of his fears is an integrated part of his daily life, it seems impossible to go on. All his coping mechanisms are failing, all his old routines devolving into an endless string of compulsions he can’t deny. 

Holden calls off work sick two days in a row. He reasons that he’ll find his way out of this black pit of fear and dread soon enough - just the way he once convinced himself that the threat of a break-in was no longer imminent - and he’ll be able to get back to work. Instead, he spends those two days falling back into one compulsion after the next. He cleans the bathroom until his knuckles ache and his fingers burn from bleach. He pulls out all the files in his office and reorganizes them, sitting crouched on his knees over a mountain of disassembled photos and police reports until his legs go numb from lack of circulation. He washes every garment inside his closet and irons them all even though none of them were dirty or wrinkled to begin with. At night, he tosses and turns, lost in the deafening din of his dark thoughts, cowering beneath his anxieties, trying to reason through them, trying to convince himself of their fallacies, failing again and again.

At eight o’clock at night on the second day, he’s still standing over the ironing board, trying and failing to get every single wrinkle out of a white button-down. He doesn’t know how long he’s been standing here pushing the iron across invisible blemishes, but he’s sweating from the steam and heat, his neck aching from peering down at the folds of fabric. It seems he’ll be standing here for another three hours when the sound of a knock at his door interrupts the cyclic stream of his thoughts. 

“Holden?” 

Bill’s voice from the other side of the door is enough to break the persistent, compulsive urge to keep working the iron. He turns the heat off, and walks on trembling legs across the room to the front door. His hands are sweating as he pulls the door open. 

Bill stands in the doorway with his hands tucked in the pockets of his black trench coat, and his brow creased with a concerned frown. His cheeks sport rosy color from the November wind while moisture glistening on the shoulders of his coat suggests rain or snow. 

“Bill … what are you doing here?” 

“I just came to check on you.” Bill says, his gaze creeping past Holden to the inside of the apartment. “How are you feeling?”

“Um, okay.”

Bill’s gaze shifts from concern to confusion as he glimpses the ironing board and all of the shirts and trousers hanging from the curtain rod. 

“Wendy said you called in sick.” He says. 

Holden glances away, his cheeks growing hotter. He wants to shut the door in Bill’s face. His obsessive ironing doesn’t look any good for the “sick” image. Nobody does this much laundry when they have the flu. 

“Can I come in?” Bill asks. 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Because. I’m sick.”

“Are you?”

Holden looks up from the carpet at Bill’s skeptical tone. Bill’s eyebrow tilts upward, both bemused and irritated. 

“Okay.” Holden says, “Now you know. I’m not really sick. Does it make you feel better that I’m avoiding you?”

“With ironing?” 

“Sure. That’s none of your business.” Holden says, crossing his arms defensively. 

“Holden, you can’t call off work because we’re having a disagreement. It’s just not professional.”

“I know. And now you’ve lectured me for it so you can go.” Holden says, grabbing at the door handle. 

Before he can push the door shut, Bill’s hand plants itself in the center, and pushes it open again. Holden takes a stumbled step backwards, his mouth moving in silent protest as Bill enters the apartment, and lets the door swing shut behind him. His nails are against his wrist, and he can’t stop it. His thumb pushes against his pulse, down into the narrow space between delicate bones where bundled nerves jump in response. It hurts, and he can’t hide the wince on his face when Bill turns to pin him with a penetrating gaze. 

Their gazes clash, fear and hesitation and frustration rippling beneath the surface of silence. Holden pulls his hand away from his wrist, and tucks it behind his back. His thumbnail starts rubbing across his fingertips in response, urgency humming in his veins like electricity. He wants to slap himself -  _ Stop. You’re exposing yourself.  _ But he can’t stop. He can only stand rigidly still as Bill steps closer, his gaze perusing Holden’s trembling figure with seething intuition. 

“You know …” He says, softly. “I’ve been thinking - wracking my mind - ever since that night.”

“About what?” Holden whispers. 

“You.” Bill says, “How none of it made sense.”

Holden swallows hard, and looks away. His body endures waves of nauseated heat that collide in his belly, impulses screaming at him to get out of this conversation, to lash out defensively, to do something - anything. 

“I thought it was just the panic attacks.”

Holden trembles, his eyelids slipping shut against encroaching tears as Bill closes the space between them, the weight of his gaze landing like scratchy friction against Holden’s tender, quaking skin. 

“Or the thought of being with another man …” Bill continues, his voice dropping to a whisper. “But it isn’t any of that, is it?”

Holden draws in a hitched breath. He wants to crumble, but Bill’s eyes are holding onto him, forcing him to stay in his place. 

“Please …” He whispers, his voice low and strangled, barely recognizable. “Don’t … don’t make me do this.”

Bill’s hand touches his cheek, and he flinches, his eyes slamming shut against the threat of vulnerability. 

“Do what? Be honest?” Bill presses, his other hand clutching Holden’s waist. “Tell me the truth for once?”

“Yes, I ... I can’t- … You don’t understand. You’re going to hate me-”

“Christ. Would you stop saying that?” Bill whispers, fiercely, “I don’t hate you, Holden; you’re just making it really hard for me to trust you right now. So please, just tell me the truth so we can work through whatever this is together.”

Holden’s eyelids slip open, fighting past the crushing weight of dread. A tear slips free of his eyelashes, wandering down his cheek in a hot, divisive line. Bill’s gaze swallows him up, his eyes all pale and soft and open, begging Holden to trust him. It’s a tempting thought, one that blooms briefly before the dark cloud of fear pinches it off. 

He pulls away, swiping at his tear stained cheek with coarse knuckles. 

“You don’t want that. Trust me, you don’t.”

Bill lets out an exasperated sigh. “You would rather leave things like this? What could possibly be bad enough that you would rather lie to my face than be honest with me right now? For fuck’s sake, Holden.”

Holden lowers his chin as Bill paces away, rubbing a frustrated hand over his face. 

“Why did you call me from New Jersey, then?” Bill asks, throwing up a hand. “I thought this is what you wanted.”

Holden blinks. He’s mute as Bill turns to cast him an expectant gaze. 

“I thought if I came here, it might make it easier for you. But you’re still just running away like a fucking coward.”

Fresh tears spring to Holden’s eyes. He’s rooted in his place for a few terrifying seconds, watching Bill march back toward the door in a fury, before he breaks into motion. 

“Bill wait.” He cries, catching onto Bill’s arm just before he reaches the door. “Don’t go.”

Bill pauses, his shoulders rising with a heavy, staggered breath that ends in a weary sigh. He turns slowly to gaze down at Holden, his eyes misty and defeated. 

“I … I really need you.” Holden whispers, his voice choking on emotion. “I’m sorry. I do. I’m sorry that makes you so mad.”

Bill’s eyes slip shut against a frisson of frustration. “Holden-”

“I’m sorry I do this. I fuck up, and I don’t make it right. I’m selfish and awful-”

“Stop.” Bill says, his hands rising to clutch Holden’s cheek. “Just stop talking.”

Holden leans into Bill’s chest as the kiss comes down warm, powerful, and clinging. All of the tightly wound tension in his body relaxes by some small measure, letting him move from his paralyzed machinations, letting him leave behind his terrified compulsions and ruminations even for just a second. 

Bill curls one arm around Holden’s neck, the other around his waist, and pulls him closer into the deepening kiss. His mouth tastes like smoke and a hint of whiskey, perhaps a few shots of liquid courage downed before he showed up here. He smells good and sweet, a forest after rainfall, the shroud of pine needles sheltering the ground below. He wraps Holden up in that security, his arms as strong as those old branches, his mouth as soft and gentle as foliage fluttering in the rain. 

Holden surrenders into it, letting his body go weak, his limbs fragile and docile. For brief moments, he’s suspended and helpless, his mind blank. He never feels like this - quieted, soothed - and he wants it to last forever, only he knows it can’t. There’s still the ugly truth, the consequences, the ring of devastation with him at its epicenter. He doesn’t deserve to feel this cared for. 

He severs the kiss, his mouth panting against Bill’s cheeks as Bill continues to hold him close. Blinking up at Bill’s simmering gaze, he draws in a deep breath. 

“If I don’t tell you tonight, will you leave?” He whispers. 

Bill presses his forehead against Holden’s, and releases a low sigh. “I told myself I would.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“I know. But I can’t keep doing this.”

“Then just … stay. Just for tonight. Please?”

“Stay.” Bill echoes, “What does that mean?”

“Exactly how it sounds. Just stay with me. I can’t sleep, Bill. I haven’t slept in days.”

Bill’s frown deepens, fresh concern peeking past his frustration. 

“I think if you hold me, I could sleep.” 

Bill hesitates for a moment longer, his eyes written with conflict; but he nods his head and silently concedes. 

A little while later, they both strip down to their underwear, and crawl into Holden’s bed. Wrapping his arms around Holden, Bill draws him close, and Holden buries his face into the soft warmth of Bill’s chest. He closes his eyes, inhales the familiar scent, and quietly believes, even for just a second, that Bill wouldn’t hate him for the truth and all his darkness - that they could have a few more days like this one, that this night doesn’t have to be the last. Inside his tortured thoughts, he can’t imagine that it could be more than a fantasy. Bill has seen darkness and deviancy. He’s seen the inside of a killer’s mind, a bloody terrain that sometimes looks not much different to Holden than his own mind. How could he ever forgive Holden for his thoughts, his urges, his compelling impulses? 

But the thoughts don’t last. Any of them. Bill kisses his forehead, temple, and cheek, and the simple, silent press of his lips is enough to quiet the demons just long enough for Holden to slip away into dreams. It feels like some kind of trick on his mind that Bill could have that much power over him, but he’s too tired to not accept it. He hasn’t slept much more than a few hours in the past two days, and things are always worse when he doesn’t sleep. In the right low light, with exhaustion creeping up over his mouth and nose like insidious water, everything looks like a darkness. 

~

Holden sleeps. At long last, he sleeps. He has dreams that hold him captive for what feels like an eternity but that he doesn’t remember when he wakes. As his eyes slip open to the muted, gray light of his bedroom, there’s a silence in his brain that lasts longer than it has in months. His compulsions have fallen asleep at the wheel even as his body crawls languidly into awareness. 

Bill sleeps beside him, sprawled out on his back with one arm flung over his head and the other resting over his belly. The white sheets are tangled around their legs and tugged down just low enough to expose Bill’s bare chest, the crown of his belly swelling with deep, sedated breaths. 

Holden rolls over slowly, careful not to disturb his rest. Propping himself up on his elbow, he lets his gaze wander over the planes of Bill’s face, softened by sleep and daylight. He looks less severe than he had last night when he demanded the truth. He looks warm and pliable, the inaccessible parts of him easily unlocked to let Holden crawl inside - though it’s more of a two-way street now that the truth hobbles just beneath the surface. What things would Bill unlock and which spaces would he take up if their places were exchanged? The prospect doesn't seem as hostile as it once had.

Holden lowers his head to plant a gentle kiss on Bill’s bare shoulder. A sigh drifts from his chest as the burden of doubt caves. He can’t go on like this - begging Bill to stay, lying to him, taking these moments selfishly for himself without speaking the truth. Eventually, his dishonesty - not his condition - will poison the well. In a way, it already has. 

“I …” Holden’s voice breaks the silence of the bedroom, and he winces at the raspy sound of it. 

He glances down at Bill who hasn’t stirred. Even though he's unaware, the thought of confession is terrifying, but the alternative is just as unsustainable. Maybe if he says it aloud now he'll have the courage to admit it to Bill later - if he stays around that long.

“I have OCD.” He says in a rushed whisper, staring at Bill’s shut eyelids. “Well, obsessive compulsive disorder. I’m sure you’ve heard of it.”

The words hang out in the open air, purged from his chest like suffocating smoke. Silence reigns for long seconds while the confession settles, and he watches it take shape in a way he’s never seen.

Bill’s eyelids flutter, and Holden’s chest seizes with a horrified gasp. He pulls back, clutching a hand over his mouth as Bill stirs, his limbs moving slowly against Holden’s bedsheets. Eyes creeping open, he peeks up at Holden’s aghast expression with a cool, unreadable stare. 

Holden draws in a hitched breath past his clasped palm. 

“I have heard of it.” Bill says, quietly.

Holden’s throat thickens with impending tears. His mind quickly conjures scenarios in which Bill gets up out of the bed, horrified that Holden had hidden such a thing from him, and never comes back. 

He rushes to intercept that scenario, the panic swelling in his chest reacting before he can realize what he’s doing. His limbs feel numb, overwhelmed by the surge of horror, as he throws the bedsheets back and clambers to his feet. 

“Holden-” Bill begins, pushing up from the pillows.

Holden flees the room, and marches down the hallway to the living room where he paces under the duress of conflicting urges. Stay. Run. Stay. Run. The pair of impulses react like magnets of opposite charge, resulting in inaction. He stops by the window, staring down past the vertical blinds at the street below. Dusty snowfall had sprinkled the streets the night before, leaving everything glistening with a fine layer of white. The sky stretches on, bland gray, no sight of sunlight. He gazes at the outline of distant buildings until the image distorts, his mind rushing beyond the borders of this moment, seeing every possibility in the future in which his condition becomes widespread knowledge, in which Bill hates him, in which he is left alone forever. 

Holden’s heart leaps in his chest when a floorboard creaks behind him. He glances sharply over his shoulder to see Bill shuffling across the living room, his eyes matching the sky but with much softer regard. 

Holden swallows hard, and drags his nails across his wrist. 

“I didn’t think you would hear me.” He whispers. 

Bill pauses just a few feet behind him, his chin dipping thoughtfully for a moment before his gaze rises back up to clutch Holden gently. 

“But you wanted me to.”

Holden turns his gaze back to the window, and blinks against the threat of tears. Dread churns in his belly. Bill doesn’t look angry or disgusted, but doesn’t know everything yet. 

"I know what it means." Bill says quietly when Holden doesn't respond. 

“Oh, do you?” Holden asks, the words wobbling from his throat. 

“Yes.”

“No. I mean really.” 

“Holden, I’ve been studying psychology for over ten years now. What is it you think I don’t know?”

Holden shakes his head, pushing his nails harder against his wrist. “Just … probably fifty percent of the thoughts I’ve ever had.”

“Meaning what?” Bill asks, coming to stand beside him. 

Holden peeks up at him, catching Bill’s curious gaze for a second before he presses his eyes shut again. Humiliation and fear make his cheeks burn, his stomach turn. He wishes Bill would stop looking at him like that - compassionately. He doesn’t feel deserving of it. 

“If I told you any of them, you would think … you wouldn’t like me very much.”

“How do you know?”

“Because, Bill. We study deviancy. Compulsions. Violence. All the … all the things I’ve thought about since I was a kid, that I couldn’t get out of my mind, that-”

“Hey, hey. Hold on.” Bill interrupts, catching Holden by the waist to pull him around. 

Holden clutches his hand against his wrist between them as Bill’s palms rub along his upper arms, soothing him, and holding him in place. 

“Look at me.” Bill says, giving his elbows a squeeze. 

Holden opens his eyes carefully, hesitant to meet Bill’s gaze; but when he does, Bill doesn’t appear angry or repulsed, or any of the things his fearfully spiraling thoughts had convinced him of. 

“Having dark thoughts is a far, far cry from doing bad things.” Bill says, lifting one hand to stroke Holden’s cheek. 

“Is it?” Holden whispers, “Bill, sometimes I feel like I can understand people like Kemper more than you, or Wendy, or any other normal person. I can’t turn it off the way you do. I can’t have an intrusive thought and just move on. It stays, and I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“But you’ve never acted on it.”

“No, but-”

“Well, then. You’re not going to convince me you’re a terrible person. I judge people by their actions, not their thoughts. Don’t you think that’s fair?” 

“Yes, but …” Holden whispers, his gaze cutting away from Bill’s reassurances. “... what if- … what if one day I do? Act on them?”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

“Why not?”

“Because, I know you. And the Holden I know wouldn’t ever hurt someone intentionally.”

“The Holden you know …” Holden scoffs, quietly. “I’ve been hiding my … my  _ condition  _ from you for years. What do you really know?”

“So you’re telling me everything since the moment I met you was a lie?” 

“Not exactly-”

“Then I think I have a pretty good idea of the kind of person you are.”

Holden glances back up at Bill, wordless, shocked that this moment is happening. He reaches down to scratch his wrist. Usually that helps to reorient himself with reality, but nothing about the gray skies, or the carpet under their feet, or Bill’s blue eyes changes. 

Bill glances down at the tender spot where Holden’s nails have rubbed his skin raw before he gently pries Holden’s wrist from beneath the coarse friction. 

Holden resists for a moment, but Bill’s other hand curls around his elbow to drag his wrist upward and open to the searching gaze. A horrified flush surges to his cheeks, crushing tears the corners of his eyes, and he turns his face away from Bill’s worried perusal. 

In the silence, he hears his heart thudding with fear; then the soft rustle of Bill’s breath against his skin makes him go still, makes his heart skip a few jagged beats. He can hardly breathe as Bill presses a series of tender kisses to the wounded skin. 

Tears rise like a tide, unavoidable; no one has ever seen what he does to himself, the tics, the attempts at curtailing his compulsions. No one has ever looked at him with bare eyes and saw the truth. It hurts more than he’d ever imagined at the same instance that it feels like a massive relief, a crushing weight lifting from his breastbone.

“See?” He whispers, shuddering beneath the slow press of Bill’s mouth on his raw skin. “It’s not just the thoughts it’s ….”

Bill’s breath expels warmly over his wrist. “It’s just a tic, Holden. It doesn’t bother me.”

“Really?” Holden snaps, his defenses rising at the labeling of the urge. 

_ Tic.  _ That’s what it is, but it makes him sound crazy, unhinged. He pulls his hand away, and takes a staggered step backwards. 

As his guarded glare rises to reject Bill’s concern, Bill utters a disappointed sigh. 

“Really.” He says, “It doesn’t.” 

“Okay. Fine.” Holden says, swiping at the tear trickling from the corner of his eye. “So you don’t care that I have dark thoughts - that one day I might think about hurting you, not on purpose, but I still do. You don’t care that I sometimes scratch my arm until it bleeds. And you don’t care that I can relate to psychopathic killers. That’s not that end of it, Bill. I spent the last two days cleaning, not stopping for hours. I color code and label all of my work in my office, but I still had to pull it all out and start over. All of the clothes in my closet were clean, but I still threw them all in the washer and then I had to iron everything. It’s a battle every day going to work, using public restrooms, being exposed to germs and everything else. And if all of those fucking inane nueroses weren’t enough, sometimes the thought of having sex makes me want to crawl out of my skin. Are you okay with that, too?”

Bill’s frown deepens as he releases a bewildered scoff. “You think that’s what I’m most worried about?”

“Well, I … I- Yes.” Holden stammers, waving a helpless hand between them. “I mean, we’re in a relationship- … or we  _ were _ . Isn’t that what people want out of a romantic relationship?”

“I suppose it is for some people.”

“Not you?” Holden asks, crossing his arms defiantly. “You expect me to believe that? You seemed pretty into it that night when you sucked me off.”

“Yeah, of course I was.” Bill says, “But that isn’t what it’s all about, Holden. Maybe you don’t understand this because you’re a lot younger than me or because you haven’t had as many relationships; but, let me tell you something - the older you get, the more you realize what you value in a relationship. Things you used to think mattered just don’t anymore. Things like sex.”

Holden blinks, his throat frozen in disbelief. He clears his throat, tries for a disbelieving scoff. “It doesn’t matter?” 

“It matters; just not as much as you think it does. All I’m saying is, I’ve been around the block a few times. I’ve been married and divorced. The world starts to look a little different after you lose the person you thought you were supposed to spend the rest of your life with. Priorities change. You learn to appreciate people for who they are, not what they can give to you.”

Holden swings his gaze back to the window as he shifts nervously from one foot to the other. He isn’t sure whether to believe what Bill is saying. He’s spent most of his adult life destroying every relationship he’s ever been in for fear that one day that person would get fed up with his hang-ups about sex. He’d figured he would be alone eventually because his sex drive moves at perhaps five percent of the rest of the world’s population, that it suffers under the crushing fear of contamination and sometimes it just isn’t worth the effort. He thought he was bound to a life of solitude because no one could ever accept and love him with all his many flaws, irrational impulses, and anxieties. This moment feels too good to be true.

Holden swallows hard as the tears rise, this time out of relief rather than dread. He presses his knuckles to the corner of his eye to stem the moisture before he glances anxiously back up at Bill. 

“You mean that?” He whispers. 

“ _ Yes _ .” Bill says, firmly, his gaze clinging imploringly to Holden’s. “I was never in this relationship for sex. Were you?”

Holden shakes his head tremulously. “No, but don’t you want to sometimes?”

“Sure. When you’re ready.”

Holden doesn’t resist as Bill edges closer, putting a careful hand on Holden’s lower back. The gentle, guiding pressure draws him closer until their bare skin meets, chests clasping, bodies fitting together in a warm embrace. Holden tucks his cheek against Bill’s shoulder, and releases a quiet, shuddering exhale. His tired mind eases its protesting and whining, letting his limbs sink into the security of Bill’s arms that slowly, firmly gather him up. For a few moments, everything is quiet. 

~

Bitter, December air stings Holden’s cheeks as he steps out of the warmth of Dr. Abel’s office and onto the wet sidewalk. The snow from the previous night is piled along the curbs, pure white already turning to slushy brown contaminated by the dirt and grime thrown up by passing cars. Most of the Christmas decorations are still up along the storefronts, windows displaying steep discounts now that the holiday is over. 

Holden had never much cared for Christmas once he got past the childhood joy of receiving gifts. He’d spent most of his holidays alone, but this year was different. Bill cooked him dinner, and they shared a bottle of wine while the Nat King Cole album spun on the record player. Snuggled up against Bill’s chest, Holden fell asleep early in the middle of the re-run of  _ It’s a Wonderful Life,  _ barely recalling when Bill had roused him long enough to take them to bed. He’d woken the next morning to Bill sleeping next to him, feeling more happy than he ever had in his life. He can still feel the buoyant contentment in his chest now even as he walks away from the therapist’s office. 

Bill’s car is parked down at the end of the street, window cracked to expel cigarette smoke. He always drops Holden off and picks him back up after the sessions. At first, they had joked that Holden required to be chauffeured so that he would even go to the appointments, but that resistance is in the past. He’s been in therapy for a solid month, and he feels like he’s just beginning to accept the willingly offered help. Nearly every session ends in tears, a vulnerability that had been difficult to face but that had quickly revealed itself as a massive relief. He’d always rejected the idea of therapy because he thought talking about his condition wouldn’t cure him. Dr. Abel is helping him to see that it isn’t about a cure; it’s about coping, about living with a difficult condition but learning to thrive in spite of it. 

He’s feeling particularly positive this morning as he approaches Bill’s car, and pulls the passenger’s side door open. 

“How was it?” Bill asks, flicking his spent cigarette out the window. 

“Good. Really good.”

Bill turns to inspect him. “It looks like you’ve been crying, but you’re smiling.”

“Both true. Do you want to know what we talked about?”

“You don’t have to tell me. It’s therapy for a reason.” 

“I know. But I want to tell you.”

“Okay.” Bill says, his expression sobering. 

“It’s New Years next week. A fresh start.” Holden says, turning in the seat to fully face Bill. “I was telling Dr. Abel that I’m feeling really good about it - about next year, and you and me, and my whole …  _ thing. _ ”

“Yeah?” Bill asks, a smile tugging at his mouth. 

“Yes. And I’m really grateful that you’ve stuck with me through everything, and that you’ve been understanding about my issues; but I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said to me that night when I called you from Jersey after we had that fight.”

Bill glances down, his brow furrowing. “Holden, I was really upset that night. I said some things that, in retrospect, were a little harsh.”

“No. What you said was right.”

Bill looks back up slowly, his eyes softening with surprise but not protesting.

Holden swallows hard, and pushes ahead. “I’ve never apologized to you for everything. Not really. I kind of let my OCD speak for me, and I don’t want to do that anymore. I don’t want to be someone you always have to take care of or worry about. That’s not what I want the basis of our relationship to be.”

“I know it isn’t.”

“But it feels that way to me.” Holden says, his gaze dropping to his lap. “They’re my issues, not yours. And they’re my responsibility. I never tried to help myself, or go to therapy, or take control of my life. I let it control me - and I almost let it destroy us.”

Bill is quiet for a moment, letting the hum of the car engine fill in the gaps of raw, quiet truth. He squints at the road ahead, the glisten of snow on the wet asphalt, and Holden can see the flinch in his eyes. He knows what Holden is saying is true. 

“Can I just apologize to you right now, and have you accept it?” Holden whispers, “Please.”

Bill nods, his gaze shifting gently back to Holden’s.

“I’m sorry.” Holden murmurs, reaching over to grasp Bill’s hand. “I’m sorry for hiding things from you, and for pushing you away, and for almost ending things between us. I’m sorry that I never took care of myself until you made me. And I’m sorry that I’ve ever been a burden to you.”

“You’re not a burden, Holden.” 

Holden laughs quietly, turning a hazy glance toward the windshield. 

“Hey, look at me.” Bill says, giving his hand a squeeze. 

Holden hesitantly looks back at him, and Bill offers a soft smile. 

“I accept your apologies. But you’re not a burden to me. It’s not a burden for me to take care of someone I love.”

Holden nods, pursing his lips against the swell of tears. 

Bill leans over to give him a quick kiss on the cheek, the intimate gesture slipping in under the radar of awareness of the pedestrians around them. His thumb strokes beneath the corner of Holden’s eye, dashing away a tear before it can fall. 

“You said you were feeling positive.” Bill says, his tone lightening. “Now you’re crying.”

“I know.” Holden says, giving a choked laugh. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. We’re done apologizing and clearing the air, okay?” Bill says, “Let’s just move on. I think you’re right about next year looking really good for us.”

“Yeah, it is.” Holden says, a smile forming on his mouth despite his raw emotions. 

“Good. I’m glad we’re in agreement.” 

Bill gives his hand one last squeeze before, he motions for Holden to put on his seatbelt. 

“Come on. As much as I’d love to play hooky with you, we’ve got work to do.”

“Okay. Let’s go.” Holden says, clicking his seatbelt into place. 

Bill shifts the car into drive, and pulls away from the curb. As they head for Quantico, Holden reaches across the seat to hold his hand. 

Along the drive, the only sound is the radio playing at low volume, but Holden thinks he can still hear the conversation rippling underneath, a new understanding and hope traversing between their laced fingers. He gazes out the window at the white landscape blanketed in virgin snow, untouched in the early morning light. For the first time in a long time, he feels like he can face whatever comes next. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I'm [prinxcesskayy](https://prinxcesskayy.tumblr.com//) on Tumblr!


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